


Classified

by Solshine



Category: Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 23:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/971761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solshine/pseuds/Solshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gregory Lestrade and Mycroft Holmes have been being called in to a bunch of crime scenes that aren't theirs lately. This odd man in a bowtie might know something about that...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Classified

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2011 Sherlock Secret Santa, for my giftee, Sarah (Tardisto221B on tumblr).

The first one should have been his case; he maintained that much forever. He had already been put on it, had gotten the rundown over the phone on the way to the scene that evening—a body found amid some trees in Green Park, male, thirties from what they guessed, head missing. Weird, but not the weirdest he’d ever seen in his years on the force. 

His team reached the scene ahead of him while he was taking a call, and by the time he got to the cordoned area, he found them in a cluster, being stood down by a single petite dark-haired young woman, with a vague expression and a fingernail poised above the screen of the blackberry in her hand. Donovan came up to him as soon as she saw him, and stood before him with her arms crossed and her jaw jutted out.

“They’re trying to tell us this isn’t our crime scene,” she muttered, and Lestrade smothered a small smile.

“I’ll talk to them,” he assured her. Sergeant Donovan did not look especially appeased, but stepped aside to clear his way to the woman with the blackberry.

“It’s a murder,” she grumbled, “and in our precinct. So it’s ours. That’s how it works.”

“I’ll talk to them,” he said again, gently insistent, and strode past her to the mystery woman facing off his team. She looked up pleasantly at him as he approached.

“I’m sorry, Inspector,” said the woman, not sounding particularly sorry at all. “There was a mistake. You shouldn’t have been called. This case has already been taken up by the proper federal authorities.”

“Are you the supervisor here?” he asked. She reacted with a cock of the head and a flash of confusion across her face, though her polite, if slightly abstracted, smile never wavered.

“No,” she said, her forehead wrinkled.

“Well,” said Lestrade briskly. “Why don’t you go and get the supervisor for me? I’m sure it will waste the least of everyone’s valuable time if we just cut directly to the end of this conversation and get them.”

“I…” Her brow wrinkled a little further before she smoothed it out, and broadened her smile. “Yes,” she said. “Of course. Wait here a moment, please.”

She turned on one sharp black business heel and clipped off into the middle of a small swarm of what looked like military sorts with red berets. Lestrade seriously doubted that they would be let in to investigate—or even that they would want to—with this lot around, but Donovan would sulk if they just walked away.

The blue police box caught his eye while he stood and waited, and even as he looked at it he wondered why he noticed it at all. He’d rather have just ignored it, but he had a niggling surety that it shouldn’t be in a park. He didn’t know much about the defunct old boxes, but it definitely shouldn’t be in a park. He was so busy frowning at the box that it took a firm clearing of a governmental throat to pull his attention back.

The young woman now stood at the elbow of a man, tall and serene with thinning hair and perfect posture and a three piece suit. He leaned on a black umbrella—it hadn’t rained for days and wasn’t meant to any time soon—and stared expectantly at Lestrade, a polite smile hung on his mouth like a picture on a wall.

“Yes?” said the man. His tone was so decent and tolerant and longsuffering that Gregory Lestrade felt immediately compelled to back up, apologizing for bothering him and thanking him for his time. He resented the feeling deeply and planted his stance a little more firmly.

“I understand your people have been trying to send my people off,” he said with aggressive amicability, smiling brightly right back at the man.

“Yes,” the stranger said. Lestrade crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows, still smiling, clearly waiting for elaboration. “The case is no longer the responsibility of your team,” he explained slowly, patiently. “Your services are not required.”

“Whose responsibility is it, then?”

“That’s classified.”

Lestrade was losing his own patience and his smile was starting to slip. “You seem very sure that Scotland Yard’s got nothing to offer,” he said, “Mister…”

“Holmes,” said Mr. Holmes, not extending his hand for a shake. “Mycroft Holmes.”

“Holmes, huh?”

“Yes. I believe you know my brother.”

Lestrade let out a harsh bark of laughter. “You’re Mycroft Holmes! He’s talked about you, but… Well, you here about him? I haven’t called him. And I don’t intend to,” he added quickly, “until we’ve at least had a look at it.”

“You will not be having a look at it,” said Mycroft with that same prickly politeness and frozen smile, “because it is not your case. You were called by accident. Please, Detective Inspector. I admire your tenacity, but it will do you no good. This crime scene contains matters of national security and is highly classified.”

Lestrade stared him down for a few moments before turning and stalking back through his waiting team behind him.

“Sir?” said Donovan as he went by.

“Let them have it, Donovan,” he said without stopping.

\---

He couldn’t, though. He went by the site the next day on his lunch break. The area was still cordoned off and guarded, but in the daylight before they shooed him off he could see the earth broken as if by tunnels. Large tunnels. There was something else that was niggling at him, but it didn’t click until the guards with the red berets sent him off.

The police box hadn’t been there.

He was still turned half around, staring as he headed off down the path, and so ran straight into a young man in a tweed jacket coming toward him.

“Oh! I’m so sorry, are you all right? Afraid my mind was elsewhere.”

“Fine,” said the man, straightening his bow tie. “I’m fine. Head like a rock, me. Funny business, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t what? Your head?” said Lestrade, bewildered.

“No, what you’re staring at.” 

The detective stuffed his hands in his coat pockets and shrugged. “Wouldn’t know,” he said. “They won’t tell me anything. Why? You know something?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, nothing,” the man said, flapping his hands dismissively. “Just some… ah… mmmmmmmoles.”

One of Lestrade’s eyebrows went up. “Moles.”

“Big moles.”

“Killer moles?”

The man’s eyes crinkled in a grin. “Ah, you don’t miss a trick, do you? I bet you’re one of those police officers from last night.”

Lestrade stuck out his hand. “Gregory Lestrade.” The stranger shook it.

“The Doctor. Detective Inspector Lestrade?”

“You know me?”

“Through friends. I mean newspapers. Friendly newspapers.” He cocked his head to the side and gave Lestrade a funny smile. “Are you—what do they call it?—seeing somebody, Greg?”

“What?” he sputtered. “No. I don’t… What?”

A young man in an insulated vest came running up to them suddenly before either the Doctor could answer or Lestrade could insist. He carried what looked to be a large bellows.

“Found it, Doctor,” he panted, handing it to this ‘Doctor’ and stopping to rest with his hands on his knees.

“Excellent!” beamed the Doctor, holding the instrument up to the light for inspection. “Good job, Rory.” He turned back to Lestrade and tipped an imaginary hat. “Pleasure to meet you, Detective Inspector. If you’ll excuse me, I have a mole removal to attend to.” 

He and the boy rushed off, and Lestrade stood there and stared after them for a long while.

\---

A few weeks later, just as he was finishing things up for the day, Lestrade got a text from his superintendent. It bid him, him personally, to a quiet neighborhood not far away, but with no further instructions included. He texted back before doing a few last bits of paperwork, but by the time he had finished and shrugged his coat on, there was still no answer. Better check it out anyway, he figured.

What he saw at first glance was, to his surprise, a little knot of military sorts with red berets, like the ones he had seen at Green Park before. What he saw at second glance was the tall man with the black umbrella. What he didn’t see at all was his superintendent.

“Hey now. Mr. Holmes!” he called, waving one hand, the other in his coat pocket.

Mycroft looked up, visibly startled, and then glanced around hesitantly. Lestrade suspected with a grin that he was looking for his assistant to go over in his place. Lestrade waved again, and Mycroft came reluctantly over, swinging that umbrella.

“I am sorry to tell you that this too is in the hands of the federal authorities, Detective Inspector,” he said, smiling coolly.

“More state secrets?”

“Something like that.”

“Well anyway I’m not here about a case,” Lestrade replied. “I got a text. From my superintendent.”

The smile faltered. “Well I can guarantee,” said Mycroft, “that your superintendent was not informed of this any more than you were.”

Lestrade crossed his arms. “Then who sent the text? It was from his number.”

“I’m sure,” Mycroft said delicately, “I don’t know.”

Suddenly Lestrade smirked. “Hey, if you wanted to see me again, you could just say so.”

Mycroft looked deeply nonplussed. “What?”

“Well, could be Sherlock’s little texting trick,” he said casually. “Not necessarily from who it says, is it? Maybe you were just hoping for my company.”

Mycroft did not look impressed. His back went a little straighter. “I certainly wasn’t responsible for calling you to a classified scene,” he said stiffly.

Lestrade gave a huff of a rueful laugh. “Yeah, uh. Sorry. Nothing. Just a joke.” He resisted the urge to slap Mycroft reassuringly on the shoulder. “Never mind. I’ll leave you to your classified scene.” He turned awkwardly and hurried away, leaving Mycroft frowning after him and feeling as though he’d missed something.

\---

The third time was only a short time after, bright and early in the morning. It was his case, fair and square, beyond question, a very normal—depressingly normal—local murder, which had Lestrade in a dour mood already. Nothing to get the attention of Sherlock Holmes, and certainly nothing to get the attention of his brother. And yet just as they were cordoning off the area, here he came, dressed to the nines, trailing his assistant, and swinging that damned umbrella with not a cloud in the sky. Lestrade hated that umbrella. It was smug, was what it was. “I know something you don’t know,” that umbrella said. “Do you remember what the weather report was today? Really? Are you certain?”

By the time Mycroft reached the edge of their crime scene, Lestrade had already come out to meet him.

“No you don’t,” he was saying even as he ducked underneath the tape. “No you don’t dare. There’s nothing in this case for you. Nothing to classify. Go back to your state secrets.”

“I’m afraid,” said Mycroft with frightful pleasantness, folding his hands over the handle of his umbrella, “that I do indeed have to take another crime scene off your hands.”

“You and what army?” said Lestrade, crossing his arms over his chest. Mycroft’s eyebrows went up quizzically. Lestrade nodded to the nobody over Mycroft’s shoulder. “You left your red berets at home.”

“Ah, sir.” His assistant stepped forward, looking up from her blackberry with confusion and concern. “Actually I’m… I’m not really certain what we’re doing here.” Mycroft turned and stared at her as though she had said she wasn’t really certain who she was. “The appointment was in your schedule, but it doesn’t say what it actually is.”

“And you don’t know?” he asked. From his incredulous tone and eyebrows nearly at his hairline, it was apparently an outrageous suggestion, but his assistant shook her head. She seemed a little stunned herself. All three of them stood for a few moments, staring at each other and looking a little bit lost.

“Well,” said Lestrade uncertainly. “I guess you don’t have any business here after all. Like I said.”

Mycroft looked around again, as though hoping he could spot something to be responsible for. “I… suppose so. Come along, Sarah.”

His assistant did not look up from her blackberry, but muttered something that sounded like “Unhackable…” and followed him as he turned and left. Lestrade rolled one shoulder uncomfortably and got back to his crime scene.

\---

The last time was nobody’s case, though both Lestrade’s team and the beret-ed lot were in attendance. It was a legitimate case, for all the detective could tell, even if the wording of the report was a little funny, containing phrases like “definitely dead people” and “lots of blood.” But now they stood at the given street corner, looking around for a sign of a crime scene and eyeing the military types suspiciously. They, in turn, were gripping their weapons and radios and looking around for a threat, and eyeing the police back.

Lestrade was incensed. He did not even bother checking the address, as some of the others were doing. He marched up to the soldier that looked most in charge—standing near a blue police box which niggled at something in Lestrade’s mind—and pointed one somewhat unprofessional finger at the man’s chest.

“I want to know what the hell is going on!” he growled. “I’m tired of having my and my team’s time wasted on these goose chases. I want to talk to that smug umbrella-swinging government sod right now!”

“He’ll be along,” said a voice behind him. Lestrade turned around to see a cheerful fellow in a bow tie just before he slung his arm over Lestrade’s shoulders and walked him away from the solider and over toward the police box. It took Lestrade a second to place him. 

“You’re the man from the park,” he said. “The…”

“The Doctor,” smiled the man. “Pleased to meet you! Again! Don’t worry, he’ll be here soon. The umbrella-swinging government—I mean, Mycroft. He had a sort of a… governmenty thing going on. Don’t remember. Not important!” 

Lestrade narrowed his eyes at the Doctor. “You don’t know anything about why we’re all here, do you?”

“Oh! Right, no murders, I lied,” he said brightly. “Sorry. I mean, not that nobody died, but that… well not sorry for calling you either, I had a good reason.”

“Wait, you brought us here? My team and the… them? The red-hats?”

“UNIT, they’re called,” answered the Doctor. “Lovely folks. Usually.”

“Mycroft’s people?” Lestrade asked.

“Not mine in particular.” It was Mycroft who spoke, approaching with his umbrella and a decided frown. His assistant followed him without looking up from her blackberry. “But I’m personally acquainted with this troublemaker,” Mycroft added, “and they call me up sometimes if he’s involved. Doctor, what is the meaning of all this? I was told it was a code mauve.”

“Yes, sorry, that was, how do I put it, not true. My fault as well. Good cause though.”

“And what,” said Mycroft in a soft and dangerous voice, “is the good cause?”

The Doctor clapped his hands together once and beamed happily from one of them to the other. “Mycroft Holmes, Gregory Lestrade. Gregory Lestrade, Mycroft Holmes.”

“Yes,” said Lestrade, crossing his arms. “We’ve met.”

The Doctor’s smile weakened. He looked back over at Mycroft, who was glaring steadily at the Doctor and looking thoroughly unimpressed.

“Oh,” said the Doctor, starting to back up. “Well. That’s nice then, isn’t it? It’s just that I figured you hadn’t been, you know, properly introduced. Since I figured, after all this work, only explanation, right?”

“Only explanation for what, Doctor?” said Mycroft slowly. The Doctor looked a little bit hunted.

“Why you weren’t… getting on… properly… Amy! Amy!” he called out, turning around and pounding on the door of the police box. “Amy, it isn’t working!”

To Lestrade’s surprise—but apparently not Mycroft’s—the door of the police box opened up and a redheaded girl stuck her head out and rolled her eyes mightily.

“I told you it wouldn’t. You’re rubbish at this stuff, Doctor.”

He pointed accusingly at her. “Hey, now. You’re married, aren’t you, Mrs. Pond?”

“In spite of you,” she said, making a face at him. She turned and looked Lestrade solemnly in the eye.

“Greg Lestrade,” she said, “When Mycroft has an evening where he isn’t busy running the British government, he is an excellent gourmet cook. He is also responsible for pushing through that warrant on the McKinley case.”

“That was you?” Lestrade said, shocked out of the weirdness of the situation by this tidbit.

“It was a needless holdup,” muttered Mycroft. “They had no reason to approve it when it was so important to the case.”

“Mycroft Holmes, Greg plays football on the weekends and is not only rather good but looks, may I say, quite fit doing it. He also enjoys the music of Bach and Ligeti.” She stuck an arm out of the door and shoved a bottle of wine into Mycroft’s arms. “Down the street is a very respectable Thai place with a table reserved.”

“The case?” said Lestrade faintly.

“There is no case,” said the Doctor.

Mycroft turned and looked at his assistant, but she was apparently enjoying these new revelations and only smirked back at him.

“Go on,” insisted the redhead. “We’ll give your people a bit of chaos to chase and then send them home. Oh, don’t give me that look,” she said to Mycroft. “We’ll keep it low key.”

Another head and shoulders popped out of the police box—the young man in the insulated vest that had been with the Doctor before. “Oh also,” he said to Lestrade, “aliens exist and the government is covering it up.”

“Rory!” exclaimed both the girl and the Doctor at once.

“Well, I figured it would give them something to talk about at dinner,” he shrugged.

“Go on,” said the girl, “and have a good time. I promise that cases of being called to the wrong crime scenes will go down a lot for both of you.”

The two men—both bewildered, though Lestrade a little more visibly so than Mycroft—looked at each other. They seemed to stand there for a long time. The three people standing in front of the blue police box held their breath and waited.

Then, with slow, deliberate movements, Mycroft tucked the bottle of wine under his umbrella arm and then held out his other arm, elbow crooked, toward a boggling Lestrade. Mycroft smiled, and if it hadn’t been Mycroft Holmes, Lestrade might have said the smile was a little hopeful, and a little brave, and a little desperately charming.

“Shall we?” he said with a smirk and a voice both more confident than he felt. It took another long moment before Lestrade broke out in a grin and a laugh.

“What the hell,” he said, and he looked exhausted and gobsmacked and undeniably, disbelievingly pleased. “What the hell. Why not.” He took Mycroft’s arm like someone who had nothing to lose. And with that, they turned and left, too distracted to remember to say goodbye. And it should have looked at least a little ridiculous, the two of them walking away down the street arm in arm, but it didn’t, somehow.

“Wow. I didn’t think I’d say it but… yeah,” said Rory as they watched them leave. “I see it.”

Amy leaned in the doorway of the TARDIS with her arms crossed and grinned. “Yeah,” she said, “I surrender. They’re cute together.” She looked at the Doctor. “So come on, tell us. What inspired this little bit of matchmaking?”

“I wouldn’t call it matchmaking,” he mused, “so much as closely averting a temporal paradox.”

“Really?” said Amy and Rory at once.

“Sorry,” said the Doctor, turning around to face them, beaming like the sun. “But that’s classified.”


End file.
